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The time has finally come this year to pack away the smarminess and speak with a thread of earnestness.

Throughout September and October I embarked on a little holiday across Hong Kong, Europe and Japan. Naturally my camera accompanied me and as a result I treated the trip somewhat as work, for better or for worse. I took a lot of photos in eight different cities (Sheung Wan, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Cinque Terre, Madrid, Copenhagen, Tokyo).

Instead of posting them on Facebook, or making a 10-part blog post, I designed a 290 page book – and in true Gen Y-ish style I’m turning to Kickstarter for help!

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Holiday Notes: Notes From a Holiday is a chronological book: part photo album, part eclectic travel guide, part blog post, part journal. It’s 290 pages of big photography with notes, captions, and the odd essay – a fun one-off publication for those who enjoy food and travel which doesn’t take itself too seriously. These are concise “reviews” (spoiler: I liked everything (almost)) and photo essays of over 70 things I ate and places I visited, with writing ranging from a couple of sentences to a few paragraphs. It’s for people who prefer photo after photo rather than walls and walls of text. From drunk food to fine food, from coffee bars to beer bars, I believe a nice cross-section has been covered. You won’t find the meaning of life here, it won’t provide enlightenment or eternal wisdom, but you will be able to track down the best panna cotta in Manarola. Yes, these are some cities from only one person’s perspective, but this is my point of difference. It’s the personal touch of exalting a neighbourhood restaurant on the other side of the world for offering traditional street food I’d never seen anywhere outside of family meals, how some rotisserie chicken made me feel complete again, or how I lost my shit at the famed Noma in Copenhagen. Needless to say it’s food heavy.

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If you’d like to pledge/pre-order a copy of this book, please visit the Kickstarter page where you’ll find far more information concerning this big fat vanity project. I shoot for restaurants and city guides, I write smarmy things here, so making something of my own seemed like a natural progression – self-publishing as a challenging personal project. If I don’t make my goal it will be a shame, but I’m proud of myself nonetheless for seeing a project through from start to finish.

Regardless, I would be really thankful if you had a spare minute to take a look. Thank you so much!!

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ONCE UPON A TIME THIS WAS ACCEPTABLE. (You can consider this post an act of nostalgia, some thinly veiled vanity in regards to self improvement or simply some straight up lols fresh out of 2008.)

I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as a bad photo or bad photographer, just a bad attitude behind said photo or photographer. Armed with a fuji point-and-shoot as I travelled the globe almost 6 years ago I’d like to think the photos you see posted below were taken with both earnest intentions and a light heart and as such I feel it’s only right to give them the attention they deserve. Let’s transport ourselves back to a time where the food you ate was not a badge of honour nor was the dish you ordered a notch on your gluttonous bed post. It was part of the ordinary everyday and taking a photo of your dinner wasn’t a thing, a fad or a taboo; you could take a casual photo of it as if it were a friend or a cute dog. Auto mode! Turn on the flash! I would use flash all the time if I could!

These images retain a certain innocence, relics of an era before the complex and ubiquitous beast that is food blogging entered our precious lives.

They’re unappetising, poorly framed and ill-considered to anybody of this day and age; it’s funny how such simple notions become so dated (and offensive), huh? They represent documentation rather than collection so please enjoy, no, celebrate, something that would now be considered “a little bit shit”. Appreciate a simpler time with me, please.

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